1891
| Years: 1888 1889 1890 - 1891 - 1892 1893 1894 | |
| Decades: 1860s 1870s 1880s - 1890s - 1900s 1910s 1920s | |
| Centuries: 18th century - 19th century - 20th century 1891 in art List of state leaders in 1891 | |
Events
- January 1 ? Paying of old age pensions begins in Germany
- January 20 - James Hogg becomes the first native Texan to be governor of that state.
- January 29 - Liliuokalani proclaimed Queen of Hawaii
- March 9 ? 12 ? Powerful storm off England?s south coast; 14 ships sink
- March 17 - The British steamship SS Utopia sinks off the coast of Gibraltar, killing 574.
- April 1 - The Wrigley Company is founded in Chicago, Illinois.
- May 1 - Nine killed and thirty wounded when troops fire on workers' May Day demonstration in support of eight-hour workday in Fourmies, France.
- May 20 - First public display of Thomas Alva Edison's prototype kinetoscope (shown at Edison's Laboratory for a convention of the National Federation of Women's Clubs).
- June 16 - John Abbott becomes Canada's third prime minister.
- June 21 - First long-distance transmission of Alternating current by the Ames power plant near Telluride, Colorado by Lucien and Paul Nunn.
- August 27 - France and Russia conclude defensive alliance.
- October 1 - In California, Stanford University opens its doors
- December 29 - Thomas Edison patents the radio
- Building of The Trans-Siberian Railroad begins (ends 1917)
- The Brahmin teacher and nationalist, Bal Bangadhar tilak, begins agitation for Indian home Rule
- Civil War in Chile
- Kicking Bear surrenders
- Earthquake in Japan kills 25.000
- Famine in Russia
- Maria Sklodowska enters Sorbonne University
- New Scotland Yard becomes the HQ of London Metropolitan Police
- Swiss Army Knife
- Winter - James Naismith invents Basketball
- The Tobacco Protest occurs in Iran
Births
- January 8 - Walther Bothe, physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1954 (d. 1957)
- February 9 - Ronald Colman, actor (d. 1958)
- February 11 - J W Hearne English cricket player.
- February 27 - David Sarnoff, broadcasting pioneer (d. 1971)
- March 10 - Sam Jaffe, actor (d. 1984)
- March 19 - Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States (d. 1974)
- March 24 - John Knittel, dramatist (d. 1970)
- March 29 - Yvan Goll, lyricist and dramatist (d. 1950)
- April 2 - Max Ernst, painter (d. 1976)
- April 13 - Nella Larsen, African-American novelist (d. 1964)
- April 17 - George Adamski, UFO traveler (d. 1965)
- April 23 - Sergei Prokofiev, Soviet composer (d. 1953)
- May 15 - Mikhail Bulgakov, writer (d. 1940)
- May 16 - Richard Tauber, tenor (d. 1948)
- May 18 - Rudolf Carnap, German philosopher (d. 1970)
- May 19 - Oswald Boelcke, World War I fighter ace (d. 1916)
- May 22 - Eddie Edwards, jazz musician (d. 1963)
- May 24 - William F. Albright, American archeologist and Biblical scholar
- June 9 - Cole Porter, American composer and songwriter
- June 20 - John A. Costello, second Taoiseach of Ireland (d. 1976)
- June 30 - Man Mountain Dean, professional wrestler (d. 1953)
- September 12 - Don Pedro Albizu Campos, advocate for Puerto Rican independence (d. 1965)
- September 14 - William F. Friedman, cryptanalyst
- September 16 - Karl Dönitz, President of Germany.
- October 24 - Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic
- November 14 - Frederick Banting, Canadian physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in medicine, 1923
- November 15 - Vincent Astor, American philanthropist (d. 1959)
- November 15 - Erwin Rommel, German field marshal
- December 26 - Henry Miller, writer
Deaths
- January 5 - Emma Abbott, american opera singer
- January 21 - Calixa Lavallée, composer
- March 3 ? Leonard Jerome, American entrepreneur, grandfather of Sir Winston Churchill
- March 15 Sir Joseph Bazalgette, British engineer
- April 7 - Phineas Taylor Barnum, circus impresario
- July 4 - Hannibal Hamlin, US politician.
- August 14 - Sarah Childress Polk, former First Lady of the United States.
- September 15 - Ivan Goncharov, Russian author of Oblomov.
- September 28 - Herman Melville, American novelist.
- October 6 - Charles Stewart Parnell, Irish Nationalist leader.
- October 15 - Gilbert Arthur a Beckett, writer.
- November 10 - Arthur Rimbaud, poet
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